King. But you surely understand that I couldn't make appointments
with you to meet me in other towns. This has happened and it has been
very pleasant, but it wouldn't do to make it keep happening. Even though
I travel about with a book to sell, I--shall never lose the sense
of--being under the protection of a home such as other girls have."
"I wouldn't have you lose it--good heavens, no! I only--well--" And now
he stopped, set his teeth for an instant, and then plunged ahead. "But
there's something I can't lose either, and it's--you!"
She looked at him then, evidently startled. "Mr. King, will you drive
on, please?" she said very quietly, but he felt something in her tone
which for an instant he did not understand. In the next instant he
thought he did understand it.
He spoke hurriedly: "You don't know me very well yet, do you? But I
thought you knew me well enough to know that I wouldn't say a thing like
that unless I meant all that goes with it--and follows it. You see--I
love you. If--if you are not afraid of a man in a plaster jacket--it'll
come off some day, you know--I ask you to marry me."
There was a long silence then, in which King felt his heart pumping
away for dear life. He had taken the bit between his teeth now,
certainly, and offered this girl, of whom he knew less than of any human
being in whom he had the slightest interest, all that he had to give.
Yet--he was so sure he knew her that, the words once out, he realized
that he was glad he had spoken them.
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